Dear Guys,
I recently saw the History Channel show called Aftermath, which covers a theoretical breakdown of America following a flu pandemic that elimates 90% of the world population. Once the pandemic burns out, and a year goes buy, survivors live in small villages and towns, living like it is 1850 or so.
What struck me though, is that given this scenario, if you have no electricity, then you are stuck back in the 1850s, but with electricity you are catapulted to the level of about 1900. And, having given it some thought, I think that it would be very easy to generate electricity, on at least a part time daily basis.
In an Aftermath, there would be tens of thousands of generators, large and small, sitting everywhere. Every hospital, nursing home, police station, etc., has a large diesel generator sitting outside the building, which can give out tons of power. The only mechanical challenge, then, would be how a town could make these work again.
To make them work is easy. You either need a fuel that will burn in a diesel engine. Or, you need to open up the generator, remove the diesel engine, find the wheel or shaft of the generator itself that needs to be turned to generate the electricity, and use a mechanical device to turn it rapidly.
Fuel for diesel engines: I have heard that diesels can burn vegetable oil. In an aftermath, there would be hundreds of tractor trailer tanks-trucks, rail car tanks, and even river barges filled with hundred of thousands of gallons of vegetable oil just sitting around at factories and processing plants (soybean oil, sunflower oil, canola oil, corn oil), for the taking. And, if and when this stuff ever ran out, it would be very easy to grow sunflowers and squeeze the oil out of the seeds.
Mechanical device to spin a wheel or shaft: In the 1850s, people readily built steam engines, that could spin a shaft at very high speeds. It was definitely not rocket science, and they used low grade copper, iron and brass. I have often seen people at county fairs displaying on trailers the old time steam engines that they have built in their barns. All you would need to run them would be water, and coal or hardwood. Yes you would have to hook this up to the generator with fanbelts or power chains, but to a good motorcycle mechanic, this would be a piece of cake.
And, during the time that it takes to build your steam engine, it seems to me that you could build and old-time turn wheel, like grain mills used, where you have a could of horses walking in a circle turning a large diameter wooden wheel that is geared down to a high speed smaller wheel.
I'm not saying this would be child's play, but I've met alot of mechanics in my life who could hook all of this up in short order.
Once you have a a way to spin the generator, towns could just run the contraption for two hours or so a day. Not for washing machines etc., but for medical and dentistry equipment, drill presses and power tools, and other critical things.
And remember, all of this generator, mechanical, and electrical stuff would be lying around everywhere, including spare parts. I have no doubt that even a construction generator (the type that in built on a small tow trailer and moved from job to job) could easily be put into operation by a single family. It is just a matter of turning the right wheel at a high speed, which the ancient Greeks or Romans could easily do.
Regards, Mannyrock
